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| The two zombies with Cheech and Chong before heading to downtown New Orleans |
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| The usual chaos on Bourbon Street |
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| With my labmate Anthony |
Monday, November 12, 2012
Halloween 2012
After spending Halloween weekend at New Orleans last year, I had to go back again. I went with my friends Fallon, Pradip, Bibek, and Whitney, with Whitney's Mum nice enough to let us stay at her house for the night. We had an epic night out on Bourbon Street, hanging around with the thousands of other people in costume!
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Ecology Lab
This semester I'm teaching ecology lab for the first time since I've been at LSU. It is usually taken in conjunction with the fourth year ecology lecture course, taught by a number of professors (including my advisor, Jim). As a third or fourth year course, this lab is a bit of a step up in conceptual difficulty for the students, as well as requiring a fair amount of work for the minimal credit it is worth. The students have a high workload, with three full lab reports to write, three other assignments, and five quizzes during the semester (which makes a lot of marking for me to do). Still, it would have to be one of the most fun courses for both students and teachers at LSU, especially if you enjoy being outdoors.
The labs are three hours per week and each week has basically a similar structure with a short introductory lecture/discussion with the students before we head out to the field or work in the lab to collect data of some sort. Almost every week we aim to get out doing some sort of field work, as for most biologists (including myself) this is the best part of the job! So far we have been to cemeteries in Baton Rouge, gone fishing at streams on and off campus, been trekking through a swamp, and we will be measuring food web related data from lakes in Baton Rouge and sampling insects from various fields during the rest of the semester.
So far we have been to a couple of really cool locations. For a lab on population growth we headed north to Port Hudson, an old civil war battle site now used for reenactments. There we sampled minnows in Foster Creek and used the mark-recapture technique to estimate population size. A really nice natural forest surrounded the creek and there was plenty of wildlife to be found. I saw an eastern diamondback rattlesnake, chipmunks, squirrels and a couple of large banana spiders (Nephila clavipes), a species of orb-web spider, the largest spider family on the planet along with tarantulas. The females of these species are around the size of a human hand while the males are tiny in comparison.They look scary, but their bite is harmless - it's the small spiders you really have to watch out for!
The other sweet place we have headed to do field work is the Bluebonnet Swamp, a patch of land in the middle of Baton Rouge which has been retained as a swamp park for recreation, containing walking trails and an education center. During two labs there we helped remove the invasive plant species elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) from an area of the swamp where it is growing aggressively as part of a community service component of the course. The first week of this lab was made particularly interesting due to a downpour of rain making the swamp a lot more swampy than usual. Some students had more fun than others, with a couple falling into the water thanks to the muddy ground and hidden underwater branches and roots
In the process of passing this course the students get a good footing in a number of topics central to ecology, including population growth, measuring diversity, invasive species, food-web analysis, biogeography, scientific writing, and the all-important use of statistics. It is a really good course, and universities in New Zealand would certainly benefit from including advanced lab courses such as this in their programs, something which is generally lacking. I'm really enjoying the opportunity to teach it, and am looking forward to teaching it for the remainder of my time at LSU.
The labs are three hours per week and each week has basically a similar structure with a short introductory lecture/discussion with the students before we head out to the field or work in the lab to collect data of some sort. Almost every week we aim to get out doing some sort of field work, as for most biologists (including myself) this is the best part of the job! So far we have been to cemeteries in Baton Rouge, gone fishing at streams on and off campus, been trekking through a swamp, and we will be measuring food web related data from lakes in Baton Rouge and sampling insects from various fields during the rest of the semester.
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| Seining for minnows at Foster Creek |
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| Golden Silk Spider, or Banana Spider (Nephila clavipes) |
The other sweet place we have headed to do field work is the Bluebonnet Swamp, a patch of land in the middle of Baton Rouge which has been retained as a swamp park for recreation, containing walking trails and an education center. During two labs there we helped remove the invasive plant species elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) from an area of the swamp where it is growing aggressively as part of a community service component of the course. The first week of this lab was made particularly interesting due to a downpour of rain making the swamp a lot more swampy than usual. Some students had more fun than others, with a couple falling into the water thanks to the muddy ground and hidden underwater branches and roots
In the process of passing this course the students get a good footing in a number of topics central to ecology, including population growth, measuring diversity, invasive species, food-web analysis, biogeography, scientific writing, and the all-important use of statistics. It is a really good course, and universities in New Zealand would certainly benefit from including advanced lab courses such as this in their programs, something which is generally lacking. I'm really enjoying the opportunity to teach it, and am looking forward to teaching it for the remainder of my time at LSU.
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| Students removing invasive elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) in Bluebonnet Swamp |
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| One of my classes for the semester |
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
A Year In The USA
So I've now been in the USA for a little over a year, and it's been one hell of a ride so far. Time has simultaneously and inexplicably gone fast and slow at the same time. I've had a ton of great experiences during the year I've been here (most of which I've blogged about), met a lot of new people, and traveled to so many awesome places. Most importantly though, I feel like I have made some significant progress towards my postgraduate degree and to becoming a better scientist, largely due to my advisor, Jim, along with other faculty members at LSU. My knowledge base of most areas of ecology has broadened considerably while adding crucial detail to many more specific subjects, as well as gaining more valuable practical experience - but there is still so much to learn and do before I graduate! I can't wait to see what the next year brings, but right now I'm most looking forward to heading home for Christmas and seeing all of my friends and family. I miss New Zealand and can't wait to see it again!
Monday, September 10, 2012
Waiting For Isaac
Hurricane Isaac hit the Gulf Coast of the United States about ten days ago, leaving areas flooded and people without power for days, forcing many people to evacuate their homes, and costing nine people their lives. We knew the storm was coming to the general Gulf Coast area at least a week before it hit but initial weather models had it going through Florida, so most people weren't too worried. However, during the week, the models kept pushing progressively westward as the tropical storm built in strength. Around three days from its arrival it made a large jump west, causing major alarm in Baton Rouge and Louisiana and prompting the declaration of a State Emergency. All of a sudden Walmart and other big grocery stores were flooded with people, getting all the bread, water, ice, canned food, batteries, candles, and most importantly - alcohol that they could buy. Liquor sales really shot through the roof thanks to the number of hurricane parties being thrown as school was cancelled for three whole days! Petrol stations had lines of cars bumper to bumper down the street, and people were driving all over the place like madmen. And as the storm drew closer it only got worse, as people evacuated New Orleans, the place expected to be worst hit (and exactly five years after hurricane Katrina), to come to Baton Rouge to further clog the roads and clean out the stores.
All of Monday we kept hearing the hurricane was going to arrive early Tuesday afternoon. Come Tuesday afternoon, the sky was still clear with just a little breeze; turned out the hurricane had unexpectedly stopped in the gulf, right as it approached New Orleans. We spent hours during Tuesday night watching TV, and gradually seeing the conditions in New Orleans and surrounding areas become worse and worse - reporters were struggling to stay on their feet and often had to stop reporting to shield their face when the rain became too hard. Thanks to the $14 billion spent on the levees large parts of the city suffered only minor damage, despite Isaac dumping more rain and tidal surge on NOLA than Katrina did!
The storm finally hit Baton Rouge early that Wednesday morning. We woke to some pretty strong wind and persistent rain, which had knocked over some pots outside our front door. After waiting so long for the storm to arrive we now all waited for it to gain in strength...but it never really got too intense. There were occasional strong gusts of wind, and a day of steady driving rain, but most of the city was unscathed, with just a few windblown branches and debris along with minor flooding. At one point we were so bored at sitting around inside we went for a walk around the neighborhood in the rain!
Around 5 pm of the day of the storm, the power went out (we were one of over 900,000 homes to be affected in Louisiana alone. We were well prepared so it was no big deal, and cooked on a gas stove that evening. We thought the power would be out for a day at most, but it ended up taking three days for it to be restored. We were really lucky it wasn't so hot during the rest of the week and the temperatures inside in the evenings were bearable even with the AC off.
So below I've posted a short video of the storm taken from the front door of my house. It was captured around 2:00 pm on August 29, when the storm was more or less at its most ferocious here. Football season is upon us here in Baton Rouge now, and all are expecting LSU to make another bid for the national championship. Let's hope it happens!
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| Hurricane Isaac around 12 hours before making landfall |
All of Monday we kept hearing the hurricane was going to arrive early Tuesday afternoon. Come Tuesday afternoon, the sky was still clear with just a little breeze; turned out the hurricane had unexpectedly stopped in the gulf, right as it approached New Orleans. We spent hours during Tuesday night watching TV, and gradually seeing the conditions in New Orleans and surrounding areas become worse and worse - reporters were struggling to stay on their feet and often had to stop reporting to shield their face when the rain became too hard. Thanks to the $14 billion spent on the levees large parts of the city suffered only minor damage, despite Isaac dumping more rain and tidal surge on NOLA than Katrina did!
The storm finally hit Baton Rouge early that Wednesday morning. We woke to some pretty strong wind and persistent rain, which had knocked over some pots outside our front door. After waiting so long for the storm to arrive we now all waited for it to gain in strength...but it never really got too intense. There were occasional strong gusts of wind, and a day of steady driving rain, but most of the city was unscathed, with just a few windblown branches and debris along with minor flooding. At one point we were so bored at sitting around inside we went for a walk around the neighborhood in the rain!
Around 5 pm of the day of the storm, the power went out (we were one of over 900,000 homes to be affected in Louisiana alone. We were well prepared so it was no big deal, and cooked on a gas stove that evening. We thought the power would be out for a day at most, but it ended up taking three days for it to be restored. We were really lucky it wasn't so hot during the rest of the week and the temperatures inside in the evenings were bearable even with the AC off.
So below I've posted a short video of the storm taken from the front door of my house. It was captured around 2:00 pm on August 29, when the storm was more or less at its most ferocious here. Football season is upon us here in Baton Rouge now, and all are expecting LSU to make another bid for the national championship. Let's hope it happens!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Back Down South
Following our New Jersey and Delaware sites, we blasted through our three sites in Maryland and Virginia with relative ease. But again I was stung by wasps, twice, at our Virginia site on the Rappahannock River. This time it was by a paper wasp, from the large nest which you can see in the photo below (I took the photo after I was stung). The stings from these hurt nowhere near as much as the one I got the previous day, and look nowhere as bad either. I wish I knew what sort of wasp it was that stung me at Estell Manor, but I only caught a fleeting glimpse of it as it buzzed away!
We had Monday off as Tim, the Park Ranger at Mackay Island Wildlife Refuge, couldn't take us out in the boat until Tuesday. So we decided to go to Kitty Hawk, a small town in North Carolina, famous for being the the town right by the huge sand dunes where the Wright brothers performed the first controlled powered flight. The main attraction there was the memorial to the Wright brothers, which was pretty cool. It was situated on the actual site where they made their first flights, which were marked out by boulders. They made four flights on December 17, 1904; the first three just 37, 53, and 61 metres, respectively, but the final one was really impressive, at a whopping 260 metres! The memorial also had a nice museum with exact replicas of both their glider and plane which made the first flight. We also checked out what is supposedly the largest sand dune on the east coast, which was pretty cool, but had nothing on the dunes at Mason Bay on Stewart Island.
The next day we were up at 5 am for an early start at Mackay Island, where we have three sites. We had been dreading this day since the start of the trip due to the waist deep marsh water in some places, high humidity and heat, and the strong possibility of close encounters with deadly and agressive cottonmouth snakes. As it turned out it was actually a pretty easy day. We didn't see any snakes, the weather was cool and the forecast thunderstorms stayed away. We stayed in a hotel literally right beside our final site in Georgetown, South Carolina, nailed that site early the next morning and then had a boring thirteen hour drive back home. So the trip was ultimately a success; some useful data was collected for all of our research projects, we arrived back in Baton Rouge two days earlier than planned, and I even managed to add another two states (West Virginia and Pennsylvania) to the list of those I have visited, bring the total now to 21. Classes start back at LSU on August 20, but before then we have our six sites in Louisiana left to do!
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| The paper wasps (Polistes sp.) which stung me! |
We had Monday off as Tim, the Park Ranger at Mackay Island Wildlife Refuge, couldn't take us out in the boat until Tuesday. So we decided to go to Kitty Hawk, a small town in North Carolina, famous for being the the town right by the huge sand dunes where the Wright brothers performed the first controlled powered flight. The main attraction there was the memorial to the Wright brothers, which was pretty cool. It was situated on the actual site where they made their first flights, which were marked out by boulders. They made four flights on December 17, 1904; the first three just 37, 53, and 61 metres, respectively, but the final one was really impressive, at a whopping 260 metres! The memorial also had a nice museum with exact replicas of both their glider and plane which made the first flight. We also checked out what is supposedly the largest sand dune on the east coast, which was pretty cool, but had nothing on the dunes at Mason Bay on Stewart Island.
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| Hangliding off the top of the dune |
The next day we were up at 5 am for an early start at Mackay Island, where we have three sites. We had been dreading this day since the start of the trip due to the waist deep marsh water in some places, high humidity and heat, and the strong possibility of close encounters with deadly and agressive cottonmouth snakes. As it turned out it was actually a pretty easy day. We didn't see any snakes, the weather was cool and the forecast thunderstorms stayed away. We stayed in a hotel literally right beside our final site in Georgetown, South Carolina, nailed that site early the next morning and then had a boring thirteen hour drive back home. So the trip was ultimately a success; some useful data was collected for all of our research projects, we arrived back in Baton Rouge two days earlier than planned, and I even managed to add another two states (West Virginia and Pennsylvania) to the list of those I have visited, bring the total now to 21. Classes start back at LSU on August 20, but before then we have our six sites in Louisiana left to do!
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Field Work
The research field trip is well and truly underway. Our trip into Canada was fairly uneventful, including both of the dreaded border crossings where we passed through without even having to pull over to have our car searched - quite a contrast to last time! We didn't have a lot of time for anything other than research-related activities, the three days were pretty fully on:
Day 1: Drove north for eight hours, did two hours of field work (one site), then drove three more hours back south to Quebec.
Day 2: A total of six hours driving and six hours of field work (three sites).
Day 3: Four hours of field work (final two sites) followed by an eight hour drive back to Portland.
Thanks to New York City traffic, the seven hour drive from Portland got turned into an eleven hour one, crawling southwards with everyone heading to Atlantic City for the weekend. Sadly we wouldn't be joining them, heading straight to our paired native and exotic Phragmites sites at Estell Manor Park in New Jersey. This is a really picturesque park and would normally be great to work in. However, this time it was littered with debris from recent storms, was hot and humid, and I was stung by a wasp while sweep-netting, my first wasp sting since I was around ten years old. Sadly, as we progress south the weather conditions are only going to become more severe, and we will have more dangerous things to worry about than wasps - chiefly the famed cottonmouth snakes which we will undoubtedly see at Mackay Island...
Day 1: Drove north for eight hours, did two hours of field work (one site), then drove three more hours back south to Quebec.
Day 2: A total of six hours driving and six hours of field work (three sites).
Day 3: Four hours of field work (final two sites) followed by an eight hour drive back to Portland.
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| Big aphid colony with a predatory hoverfly larvae |
Thanks to New York City traffic, the seven hour drive from Portland got turned into an eleven hour one, crawling southwards with everyone heading to Atlantic City for the weekend. Sadly we wouldn't be joining them, heading straight to our paired native and exotic Phragmites sites at Estell Manor Park in New Jersey. This is a really picturesque park and would normally be great to work in. However, this time it was littered with debris from recent storms, was hot and humid, and I was stung by a wasp while sweep-netting, my first wasp sting since I was around ten years old. Sadly, as we progress south the weather conditions are only going to become more severe, and we will have more dangerous things to worry about than wasps - chiefly the famed cottonmouth snakes which we will undoubtedly see at Mackay Island...
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| Estell Manor Park |
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Acadia National Park - Take Two
The start of the Fall semester at LSU is fast approaching, which means it's time for the second and final big research trip of the summer. This time we are doing our North American transect in reverse, starting with our northernmost sites in Maine and Canada and working our way south to Louisiana. For this trip, Jim, Ganesh, and I are joined by Randee, an undergraduate who has worked on the Phragmites project in our lab over the last 18 months. It's great to have an extra person along for the trip, but by the time we put all our luggage and sampling gear into the truck there really isn't a lot of room, especially for a lanky guy like me!
To get to our start point in Maine we covered 3100 km in three days, a total of around 32 hours driving. As Jim flew in to meet us in Portland on the 30th, he was kind enough to let us have a couple of days holiday before he arrived, so we decided to go check out Acadia National Park again, hoping for some better weather than the dense fog Ganesh and I experienced last time. The first morning there we had booked a whale watching trip out into the Gulf of Maine, hoping to see some humpback, fin, or minke whales. The first hour or so of the cruise was spent bird-watching by various islands around the coast. We saw puffins, terns, guillemots, shearwaters, bald eagles, and even a peregrine falcon, along with a couple of seals. We then headed out to the open water to spot some whales. It was drizzling steadily and a little foggy, so our chances weren't particularly good, and we didn't spot any whales for over an hour and a half. Literally just as the captain announced we were heading back to Bar Harbor, a humpback whale surfaced about 50 metres from the boat. While the crowd was busy rushing off to the side of the boat I was lucky enough to see two more humpback whales breaching spectacularly about 200 metres in front of the boat. It was an amazing sight to see a 30-odd tonne animal launching its whole body out of the ocean! I took a video below of one of the whales going for a dive - it's much better than any of the pictures I managed to get.
Thankfully the next day had the near-perfect weather we had been hoping for, and we made the most of it. We started with a trip up Cadillac Mountain, the highest mountain on the East Coast of the USA, where we took in some pretty spectacular views. Then we headed down to Sandy Beach, which was crowded with people - a bit different to the last time when we were the only ones there. I even went for a quick swim. The water was cold, but I've been in much colder back home so it was bearable. We also went for a walk across the sand bar to Bar Island and checked out the Otter Cliffs walkway. Pretty awesome way to start a field trip really, but now for the hard work, starting with a three day trip into Canada!
To get to our start point in Maine we covered 3100 km in three days, a total of around 32 hours driving. As Jim flew in to meet us in Portland on the 30th, he was kind enough to let us have a couple of days holiday before he arrived, so we decided to go check out Acadia National Park again, hoping for some better weather than the dense fog Ganesh and I experienced last time. The first morning there we had booked a whale watching trip out into the Gulf of Maine, hoping to see some humpback, fin, or minke whales. The first hour or so of the cruise was spent bird-watching by various islands around the coast. We saw puffins, terns, guillemots, shearwaters, bald eagles, and even a peregrine falcon, along with a couple of seals. We then headed out to the open water to spot some whales. It was drizzling steadily and a little foggy, so our chances weren't particularly good, and we didn't spot any whales for over an hour and a half. Literally just as the captain announced we were heading back to Bar Harbor, a humpback whale surfaced about 50 metres from the boat. While the crowd was busy rushing off to the side of the boat I was lucky enough to see two more humpback whales breaching spectacularly about 200 metres in front of the boat. It was an amazing sight to see a 30-odd tonne animal launching its whole body out of the ocean! I took a video below of one of the whales going for a dive - it's much better than any of the pictures I managed to get.
Thankfully the next day had the near-perfect weather we had been hoping for, and we made the most of it. We started with a trip up Cadillac Mountain, the highest mountain on the East Coast of the USA, where we took in some pretty spectacular views. Then we headed down to Sandy Beach, which was crowded with people - a bit different to the last time when we were the only ones there. I even went for a quick swim. The water was cold, but I've been in much colder back home so it was bearable. We also went for a walk across the sand bar to Bar Island and checked out the Otter Cliffs walkway. Pretty awesome way to start a field trip really, but now for the hard work, starting with a three day trip into Canada!
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| Bubble Pond |
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| Sandy Beach |
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| View from the summit of Cadillac Mountain (much better than last time) |
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| Looking onto Bar Harbor from Bar Island |
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| View back to Sandy Beach from Otter Point |
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